Historical information

The Forests Commission began using computers in the 1960s for resource inventory under the Chief Forest Assessor Murray Paine
IBM introduced the Port-A-Punch in 1958 as a fast, accurate means of manually punching holes in specially scored IBM punched cards. Designed to fit in the pocket, Port-A-Punch made it possible to create punched card documents anywhere. The product was intended for "on-the-spot" recording of data such a assessment plots

Physical description

The IBM Port-A-Punch prepared computer data and programming cards.
Normally there is a a separate stylus pen, similar to a ball-point pen to punch the holes in the cards, but it is missing
This instrument consists of a plastic frame that holds 13 long plastic rectangles along its length.
A transparent plastic template which has an array of evenly spaced holes fits over the rectangles, and cards are placed over this.

Inscriptions & markings

IBM Portapunch